First is Last
by hellantroy5567
Summary: A 14 year old girl named April is gong for a normal execution of a dangerous assassin and she doesn't make it out as the same person she once was. (Previously called Day-Nightmare)
1. Prologue

Prologue:

I pull on the light blue, knees, hemmed, silk, dress and tie it. My mother wears her silver ankle dress with a black jacket. We walk outside and join the crowd for the execution. We gather in the main area within the walls facing the raised platform. There is a man, kneeling down in filthy tattered clothes, a black jacket and white bloody undershirt and black pants.

"Do all criminals have such bad taste in clothing?" I whisper to mom.

"Who knows?"

We both giggle as I straighten back up to face the platform. The knights stand at either side as the executioner in the black cloak raises his scythe. I tilt my head… I swear the criminal, what was his name- Atrix I think, smiled when he heard the drummer pick up the beat. My mom covers my eyes like she always does when the executioner raises his scythe.

A low whistle catches everyone's attention and we turn to face one-another. My mother grabs me and begins running for the gates and I don't know why until I see the onslaught of 5 people coming at us, they are bloody and surrounded by bodies, and they are led by the prisoner.

Screams rise up through the crowd as my mother drags me along behind her, something jumps down in front of us and my mom pushes me off to the side and stands in between me and another one of the men. I look around my mother, a 14 year old watching the likely death of her mother and family member, her protector, the only one left that loves her.

My blond curls tumble down as time seems to move in slow motion, my mother elbows me back as I see the dagger go through her heart and hear the words, "Run April, don't stop running!"

I drag myself up and run as straight as I can, my vision blurs but I know enough to dodge around the crowds of people, tears rolls down my cheeks, streaming fast off my face and onto the ground. I hear footsteps behind me, 2 pairs. I turn and grab a pin off my dress and unclip it.

"A pin against us?" One says, I quickly size him up, blond hair, greenish brown eyes and a cocky look, maybe 16.

"S-stay away from me!" My voice shakes which doesn't help with the strong independent air I'm trying to give off.

"I'll go easy on you little girl." I hear the blade clatter to the ground and inwardly smile. I have been in plenty of street fights, I bet I could come out alive if not injured. He steps forward grinning then lunges, I hear my skirt rip as I lunge left making him stagger with the force of expecting me not to move. I can sense the closeness of my opponent and my gaze zooms into only him. I jam the pin into his arm for a distraction grab his head and slam it down, grab his knife and run again.

I make it out of the gates and keep running until I think I can walk. Then, the death of my mother, Hazel Ann Crian, hits me hard and I fall onto my knees. My mind goes numb, my eyes get dark around the edges, and I fall, unconscious.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

My mother's voice fills my head; it's higher and brighter than I ever remember it being since my older brother and father died in war, "Wake up sleepy head!"

My eyes flutter open and I don't see mom, but a girl with brown hair and dark brown eyes – almost black.

"Hi-a sleepy head!"

"Uhhh… who… who are you?" I mutter.

"I'm Russet Aura!" The girl said playfully. She then frowned and touched my forehead, "You still have a bad fever—I'll get you some tea and food."

"Thank you…" I mutter somewhat confused.

When she comes back with the tea I'm starting to feel good enough that she didn't have to feed me. I ate the crackers before I drank the tea, like normal, and then ate the toast – without help thank you – and then fell asleep again.

By the time I am strong enough to stand up, the only place I can go is to the bathroom. If I try to go further I fall and can't rise. I don't think I got that hurt at the execution, this stuff is probably mainly mental.

_I feel the blood touch my skin, warm and red. It dries to a crusty brown scab as I slam on the ground because of her elbow. The man looking at me like I'm next as her body falls still with the knife in it. I scramble up and run as my mother ordered, but I don't cry. I focus on the task at hand, beating up the guy that killed my mother, and surviving._

_I run and run and run until I no longer see home. I then stop and collapse crying, through the blur of my tears I see a figure then I am unconscious. _

My gasp is loud as I jump up in bed panting and sweating. Was that a dream? Or was it a memory?

It went on like this for months, me not being able to do more than feed myself and Russet nursing me back to health. Finally when I was strong enough to work I worked as hard as I could. I got jobs, waitress at an inn, shop keeper, bar tender, etc. One day when I was at the bar I heard screaming, loud, pain-filled, screaming…

I ran outside and saw, again, the people who had stopped the execution.

Arrows lodged in people's skulls, limbless men and women lying around, children running away and screaming, I spotted Russet and ran to her, she grabbed my hand and bolted, her grip was hard fierce and her speed quick. Someone was gaining on us and Russet turned with a knife I had no idea she had. She threw it and it hit directly into our pursuer's arm. Russet grabbed me and kept running.

"Don't stop running no matter what, I'll hold some of them off!" She shouted flinging me forward.

"Russet!" I yell but I keep running. I hear yells and screams behind me but I don't turn around. Russet… gone just like my mother… and my father… I pray she makes it ok. Someone jumped down in front of me and I skidded fell, skinned me knee and ran away from the figure behind me.

A hand clamped around my wrist and I turned and stared face to face with the assassin that was going to be executed, "let go of me!" I yell.

He grabs a knife and I know I'm dead. Just as a last stand I punch him and the knife digs into my wrist. Had I blocked the attack? Or was this a torture attack?

I still struggled, the knife lodged in my wrist and all. He let go of my wrist and pulled out a dagger. I ran not turning, I pulled the knife out of my wrist and ripped a part of my shirt off and bandaged the wound as fast as I could. My breath caught and I coughed and stumbled. My brown cloth bandage was soaked with blood. My head spun and I feel myself stagger but kept running.

"Yuki!" Russet yells and I turn my head. She wasn't killed? "Yuki, come here!"

"Russet?!" She grabbed my wrist and glared at the red bandage- my pathetic attempt at a bandage.

"What the hell happened?!"

"Um, someone jammed me with a knife?" I sound really stupid.

"Never mind that, at least your aren't dead."

"Russet, what about the assassins?!"

"I think they are gone…"

"I hope…" Russet held my wrist and started wrapping it with real bandages.

She sighs and touches the knot she was able to tie with her shaking hands, "It looks like you have a band of dangerous stalkers following you around."

"I guess…"

"That's never a good thing; we'd better alert pest control!"

"If they still are up for the challenge of flesh eating rats then yes!" It never failed to surprise me how Russet always found a way to be defiant, if not by being a rebel, by failing to be afraid when others were afraid, being a rock in the current as it were.

She started walking back towards town with me in tow, her hand clamped rightly around mine, I had the feeling that I was getting the older sister, the protector, I always wanted.

The town was stained red, the cobblestones on the ground, the bodies littered across the wide expanse of the town square, the children cowering wherever they could, not wanting to see their parents lying dead and bloody.

My breath catches and I feel myself walking robotically, hypnotized by the blood and gore and guts that surrounds me.

I feel a hand, gently cover my eyes, "I know we are the same age Yuki but you shouldn't see this…"

"Russet what..."

"Come on." She leads me into her home and I sit down. She starts collecting money from anywhere she can find it, even other houses, and then treats my wrist then we go outside and start walking away from our ruined, red town.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

We camped out some 30 miles away from our old town, we also agreed on watches, I'd be up first till midnight then we'd switch. I start to doze off in the middle of my shift and start pinching myself to keep me awake, soon I pinch too hard that there are fingernail marks with pricks of blood.

"Great…" If Russet saw I was pinching myself she'd freak. I sigh and just continue doing whatever it takes to stay awake. I gaze upward to the moon and—I swear to god—I see a shadow on the moon shaped like a person. I shake my head, a dream, it's just a dream, I'm tired, I'm not thinking straight. Looking back at the moon, the shadow disappeared.

"Odd smell…" I whisper. It smelled like roses mixed with poison, and poison was never good. Russet shot up out of bed and grabbed my neck.

"Russet!" I choke out as her fingers tighten, "Russet what's gotten into you?!"

In response, her fingers tighten and I see her eyes, not the dark brown I am used to, but crimson, crimson like blood. The edges of my vision starts turning black and the smell gets worse. Between the poison-y rosy smell and the choke it was only a matter of time before I black out. I have to get her fingers off of me, I begin coughing for air, inhaling the fumes when Russets hands release and the sound of a body slamming to the ground hits my ears.

The bruises on my neck, the ache in my lungs, the coughing, the smell, Russets screams of anguish, between all of these I know that I am dead. I know it, yet I do not die. My lungs continue to breath in on my command, my heart continues to pump air, my brain continues thinking, my legs and arms continue moving, I am not dead.

I begin to breath more regularly but all I have the strength to do is keep my eyes open and stare at the stars. I suck in a breath as long as I can until I choke, then I breathe it out until I cough. Air, never tasted so sweet. But there was still the smell, the poison.

I felt it enter my lungs, but the only pain I felt was in my head. I began coking, my eyes start going dark around the edges, my head pounds. I'm dead… maybe I'm already in the place where you go, maybe I'm already in heaven… or hell.

Strong arms lift me up, I can't move or see. I hear Russet crying, voices echo through my head.

"I'm so sorry Yuki… I'm so, so, sorry!"

She hugs me tightly after I was propped against a rock, she has bruises all over her and tear streaks. Her red, puffy, eyes make me know she's telling the truth.

"Russet what…"

"I lost it, I thought you were…" she begins bawling and tears flow out of her eyes in a waterfall of sparkly salty water.

"I was what?" everything is still really blurry.

"I thought you were going to kill me!" She began to choke on her own tears.

"Calm down, I'm still alive, it's not the end of the world." I hug her and she begins to settle down, "What was that smell anyways?"

"I-I don't know I think it was some type of gas or-or something."

"Alright." I sit up and rub my head, my neck still has the bruises from the attack and I don't even know who the hell saved my life.

"In death we trust?" I just noticed Russet has a note in her hand, apparently she was reading aloud. Freaky statement much?

"What?" I look at her and see the sentence, "That's kinda creepy…"

"We should move… lets go." She grabbed the stuff and repacked everything then we started walking, with the slight rays of sun in front of us, and a broken bloody town and a fight scene behind us.


End file.
